BEFORE: OK, I'm determined to catch up today, because I'm at home and there's nothing scheduled at the theater, so I can squeeze in a second movie - actually since I missed Tuesday completely I think I need to watch THREE movies in a 24-hour period, that's yesterday's movie, today's movie and I can start tomorrow's movie before the stroke of midnight tonight, that should do it. It's the week of the Sundance Festival, and I remember that all three times I went there, I would see as many movies as possible, sometimes as many as SIX in one day. It can be done, if you just buckle down and focus and buy as many tickets as you can when the box office opens at 7 am. It's getting around Park City that's the tough part, especially if you don't know your way around or realize how much time it takes to get the shuttle bus around town. One strategy I used to employ was to buy tickets for a few shows at the bigger venues, and then stand in the wait-list line for the other shows at the same venue that day, because there were ALWAYS a few wait list tickets sold for each show, so if you could get to the front of the wait-list line, you actually had more chance of seeing a film than someone with a hard ticket who was running late because their shuttle bus was delayed. Good times, but that was like 20 years ago that I last went out to Park City.
I think I've found a way to work "Maestro" into the chain - it would be great to get one more Oscar contender in before the romance chain starts, and this might be my best option. Getting "Tár" and "Maestro" watched in the same week would make some sort of sense, but that means I'll have to drop TWO movies from my chain instead of one, it's not going to easy but I think it can be done. My plan was to only watch 29 or 30 movies this month, but I've now over-crowded the field again, so something's got to go. Alec Baldwin carries over from "Tár".
THE PLOT: An actress's nightmare about killing her ex-boyfriend somehow becomes a reality.
AFTER: I guess if I have to squeeze an extra film into my completely empty schedule on a frigid boring Thursday off, this is the way to do it. This film is only 70 minutes long, that's barely a feature film - while "Tár" was 2 hours and 38 min. and "The School for Good and Evil" was 2 hours and 27 min., and "John Wick: Chapter 4" was a whopping 2 hours and 49 min. I could use a break on the running times, plus this has been taking up space on the movie DVR for 8 months now, and it needs to go. So yeah, a quick afternoon movie today, and then I'm back on track, maybe I can fit "Maestro" in on Saturday, that one's over 2 hours, too. It's winter clearance time here at the Movie Year, and movies I recorded that are taking up space have priority.
I know this movie was released in 2017, but it FEELS like the kind of film that was shot during the pandemic - just 8 actors and 2 cameos, shot in 2 locations, and then it feels very unfinished and low-budget. Why hire a bunch of actors to play policemen and pay for uniforms when you can just dub in the sound of sirens later? Definitely made on the cheap, I would imagine it was shot in the director's own apartment if I didn't know any better. Yeah, I figured out what Manhattan block the main character lived on, it wasn't that difficult since I spotted the name of ONE restaurant in the background. My lips are sealed, though, but I know Soho when I see it, and I'm just not going to give up until I figure out which school playground that is in the background.
But then to say this feels "unfinished" seems a bit of an understatement. The murder in question is seen in Vera's dream at first, so really, we're not sure at first if it genuinely happened. Things don't have to necessarily make sense in a dream, so that's maybe a narrative cop-out, the only clue that we have that it did happen is that the camera keeps taking that shot of the big foot locker and lingering just a bit too long, which makes us wonder what's inside. But now I wonder if it was a narrative choice to show the murder in a dream sequence, or if there was some kind of problem with the sound recorded for that scene, so hey, let's put it in a dream and make the dialogue sound garbled, that will enhance the feeling that we're just not sure if it's imaginary or not. Form follows function but also covers up certain mistakes.
If you had to get rid of a box with a body in it, would you drag that box to your car by yourself, in the middle of the day, down a busy NYC sidewalk? No, of course not, if you stopped and thought about it for five minutes you'd realize you have to do that at 2 am, or better yet, hire a moving company to come and pick up that foot locker, and pay a couple of guys to take that big box to a storage facility, where nobody's ever going to find it unless you stop paying the bills and your unit gets auctioned off to some unlucky buyer who then has to deal with that decomp smell. OK, I realize my plan might have a few flaws but at least it's better than dragging the box across a busy street during daylight hours, keeping an eye out in all directions and looking guilty as hell. Jeez, you can tell there's a body in that box just from how she's trying so hard to not be seen. NITPICK POINT: Her ex was pretty tall, much bigger than her, plus that foot locker looked fairly heavy itself. Even if Vera had been working out regularly, I doubt she'd be able to drag that down the street, she's a skinny actress with no upper body strength.
What's worse is that she drops the locker in the Hudson River, somewhere a bit upstate, however she can't manage to get it any distance at all from the dock, which means that the locker's still in a place where anybody could see it, probably only in a few feet of water, which means you might even see it during low tide or a boat could hit it quite easily. To really dump a body in the river, you've got to get it on a boat and get it out in the MIDDLE of the river.
You're better off carrying that body out of your apartment "Weekend at Bernie's" style, like your friend had too much to drink and you're just trying to get him home. Prop him up at the bus stop like he's waiting for the bus, or better yet, get his body on the bus and then get off at the next stop and walk home, trying not to look guilty. They can deal with him at the depot when he doesn't get off at the last stop, but hey, they're trained to handle these things, and now he's somebody else's problem. You're welcome. This is assuming you don't know somebody who works at a construction site who's willing to hide his body where they'll be pouring concrete the next day. (Just a reminder, all three "Law & Order" series are finally coming back tonight, after the delay caused by the strikes.)
Where was I? Oh, yeah, our actress friend probably would have been in the clear if she'd just told the truth in the first place, how her ex-boyfriend came over and demanded money, threatened her with violence and she was forced to defend herself, and the gun went off accidentally. That would have been an easier sell, but now she's on the hook for improper disposal of a body, lying to the police, interfering with an investigation, and so on. All that can swing the jury away from accidental death or negligent homicide and closer to murder, if that's what the D.A. wants.
I'm willing to award a few points today for Charles Grodin's final performance as Vera's grandfather, who has dementia and keeps asking the same questions, over and over in his deadpan comic style. It's darkly funny but also very realistic, especially if you've ever dealt with a senior person whose brain keeps going around in circles. This scene is largely symbolic because the movie can't seem to complete any thought either, so we're left with a bunch of unanswered questions. What was the favor Grandpa wanted to ask from financier Carl Icahn? What tipped off the detective that Vera's story wasn't legit? Did Sal die the way he died in the dream, or did it go down some other way? And is $50 the going rate for paying two guys to lift a heavy box into your car? Who even owns a car in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan but can't afford to keep it in a garage? And who possibly worked on this film and said, "Yep, that looks done to me!" Usually you can't get filmmakers to STOP working on their movies, and here it feels like somebody just gave up.
Also points for not making the film even longer than it was, anything over the 70 minute running time would only have prolonged the agony. Better to just end it early.
Also starring Sienna Miller (last seen in "21 Bridges"), Charles Grodin (last seen in "While We're Young"), Colleen Camp (last seen in "Amsterdam"), John Buffalo Mailer (last seen in "W."), Nick Matthews, Steven Prescod, Oliver "Power" Grant, Carl Icahn (last seen in "The Last Blockbuster"), James Toback (last seen in "Alice").
RATING: 4 out of 10 images from Heironymous Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (sorry, other online reviewer, it's not the "Haywain Triptych")
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